He begins to walk, trailing me behind him gently. My eyes water slightly. As we pass Felix, I give him an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, I’ll see you tonight, yeah?” He just smiles right back—nodding his head at me. Always so understanding, so good.
Aaron steps out into the hallway to allow us a path from the room, but as we’re leaving, he slams a hand on the wall in front of Drew—startling him. Once he recovers, he glares viciously.
“What the fuck, man?” He snarls. I want to intervene, to stop this—but I’m not sure how I would.
“The next time you want to be a dick and treat your boyfriend like shit, don’t do it in front of all of his friends. At the very least, you better not do it in front of me.” Aaron goes inside and slams the door. All without sparing me a glance.
Drew stands frozen for a moment—then very slowly begins to walk again. When we get to his dorm, he finally turns to face me.
“Benjamin, you just let him treat me like that.” He looks genuinely hurt—his blue eyes wide and sad, lips turned down. He’s still holding my hand.
I furrow my brow, looking up at him. I was hopeful that he’d understand how stuck in the middle I am here.
“What did you want me to do? I can’t exactly stop you guys from talking, and all you do is go at each other. I didn’t exactly come to his defense either.” I point out, pleading to him with my eyes.Please understand me—understand how hard you two make this.
“I sure hope you wouldn’t, considering he’s not your boyfriend.” His snarky response pulls an exhausted sigh from me as he drops my hand and sits on his bed. I’m not sure who his roommate is, but they’re not here.
“It has nothing to do with that. You’re my boyfriend, everyone knows that. Aaron is my best friend’s big brother—someone I’ve known for a decade.” I try to reason.
“Someone you’ve fucked.”
“Drew. We did not have sex.” He shakes his head—eyes full of tears.
“But you wish you had. Instead of me, you wish it was him.”
My chest hurts—submerged in sorrow and guilt. An unbelievable shame. I’ll never outrun this pain I’ve caused him. For as long as I know him, I’ll live in this shadow, this suffering. And so will he.
“You can’t say you forgive me and then use it against me every time we fight.” My words are soft—hoping he gets the memo. If we keep pulling that back into our relationship, we won’t make it.
“So, you want me to forget it?”
“No, Drew—forgiving and forgetting are two different things. But you can’t keep throwing it in my face anytime Aaron is involved. It’s not fair to me, but mostly it’s not fair to you. You’re torturing yourself, Drew.” He’s staring at me—big blue eyes watery and considerate. He’s deciding what to believe, what to do.
Those eyes used to look at me like I brought the sun up and then set it just for him—all with my own two hands. Like I was something to treasure, to love. Now, they just look sad. I know it’smy fault. I have no right to be miserable. But the pain I feel when he looks at me like this—when he looks at me like he’s trying to figure out how to stay and be happy at the same time—is suffocating.
“Okay. Sorry—you’re right. I got a little possessive today after seeing that mark on your leg. I let him get to me and acted like a child. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that either—you can wear what you want, Benjamin. I really don’t feel a certain way about it. I just hated seeing that scar.” Drew is incredibly good at taking accountability—at apologizing. Once he sees the error in his actions, in his words, he’ll own it.
“That’s okay. I’m sorry you had to see it.” He reaches for me—pulling me in between his legs. Apologetic eyes stare up at me.
“I really do love you, Ben.” Except it sounds like he’s asking me to stay—and I still haven’t said it back to him. Will he leave me if I don’t?
“I don’t know if I really understand what love is.”
And this time when my eyes plead for him to understand, he does. Smiling softly at me he sticks his head under my shirt—kissing the skin of my chest, my stomach—running his hands up the length of my spine. As I lose myself to the sensation of his tongue on my body I wonder if he truly understands me—or if he’s just happy that this means I can’t love somebody else.
I think I did, once.
???
The first day of classes is rough. The lecture halls are huge, and Felix only has two of my three classes with me. Luckily, Drew has my last class—the one I don’t share with Fe. They’re all general education courses so they’re pretty versatile. Felix and I make friends with a guy in our College Algebra course who is possibly one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. Alex has wild brown curls and green eyes that never stop bouncing to something new. He has a serious case of ADHD and is incredibly nice. Since we all planned on meeting up in one of the study rooms in mydorm after classes, we invited him to come along and meet the group.
We’ve yet to meet Aaron’s friends, but I’m excited to. To hear stories about freshman Aaron and their crazy shenanigans.
I’m also nervous about seeing Aaron. I haven’t seen him since the situation with Drew on Friday. Over the weekend he had stuff to do for his English Literature club’s orientation, and since he has an apartment right off campus, I don’t get to run into him at the dorms or anything. Some small part of me is terrified that he’s disappointed in me—that he thinks lowly of me for staying with Drew. As wrong and selfish as it is, his approval—his praise—it means so much to me. Too much.
Drew held true to his word about what I wear. For the first day of classes I wear a black silk button-up only buttoned about halfway—leaving most of my chest visible. The front is tucked into a pair of white, wide-legged dress pants sitting right below my belly button. The rest falls around me—gradually getting longer in the back. My hair is just as messy as it always is—keeping up with itsgolden-haloreputation as it sits right on the top of my ears, circling my head and curling at the ends. My black loafers are a sharp contrast to the white of my pants, but the biggest appeal—and the part that if Drew knew the meaning of it, he’d definitely make me change—is the necklace. Around my neck—falling right atop the center of my chest—is a golden button dangling from a golden chain. I wonder if Aaron will notice.
